2012 News

Published on Sunday, 23 September 2012 08:37 | Written by DTSB | | | Hits: 2534

Recording a breakthrough in bridge construction in Malaysia, Dura Technology had again successfully put up a 40m pedestrian bridge at the heart of the Ipoh City, and this time it is being completed overnight. This serves as a pedestrian for the students of Sekolah Menengah Taa’yah to cross over the four-lane Jalan Raja Dihilir to their gymnasium hall on the opposite. Roads were closed to traffic on the 21st September 2012, at 9pm for the preparation and launching of the 40m non-intermediate pillar pedestrian bridge.

Jalan Raja Dihilir is one of the main road for Ipohians to travel to and from the city center and east of Ipoh. There were schools, hotel, hospital, private clubs, governmental, royal residences and residential along the road and closing the road to traffic for a conventional bridge construction that takes about six months to complete is almost impossible. In addition to that, if there would be an intermediate pillar to support the 40m pedestrian bridge, it would caused a nuisance to the residents around and public traffics with the even longer traffic closure and a major change to the existing ‘island’ landscape.

This construction of bridge is also captured as an interesting engineering construction because the 40m bridge was launched in place by a single lift with the Malaysia largest mobile crane – 880T. When the traffic was closed to traffic at 9pm, heavy rain started to pour and had halted the progress, but by 11pm, the team from Central Geo started to assemble its mega machine. The assembling of this mega machine took about 5 hours with some minor hiccups in between. Nonetheless this giant 880T, is the only piece in Malaysia and had been used twice prior to this bridge was all set to work at 5 am.

With all eyes upon the launching of the bridge beam, the giant 880T was carefully maneuvered to pick and lift the 40m beam to place it on the abutments. The process was smooth and it was done in a single lift right to the exact place the beam will be sitting on and thus the completion of the launching. The team then dismantles the mega machine and all the work were done by 7am. The 4-lanes were opened to the public traffic at 10 am the very next day. There will only be further construction of the stairways, the covering of the roofs and railing to the pedestrian bridge, hence the completion of a serviceable pedestrian bridge. This Dura Pedestrian Bridge System only took 2 weeks from pilling to the final serviceable bridge to complete, and the roads were only closed for a mere 12 hours with minimal distractions to the publics. It is indeed a brilliant step of sustainable and fast construction.